From AI Hype to Strategy: Gartner's Agentic AI Playbook for CISOs

Turn Hype Into Strategy: Gartner's AI Playbook for CISOs

The biggest threat to your security posture isn't a hacker; it's hype. The frenzy around artificial intelligence is making it difficult to think clearly, but according to Gartner analysts, it also presents a unique opportunity.

Instead of ignoring the noise, security leaders must learn to use it. Speaking at Gartner's Risk and Security Management Summit, analysts Christine Lee and Leigh McMullen urged CISOs to channel the energy of AI hype into strategic advantage, secure executive support, and prepare for the next wave: agentic AI.

Use the Hype Cycle to Your Advantage

New technologies follow a predictable path. Gartner's Hype Cycle model shows a rapid rise to a "peak of inflated expectations" before a fall into the "trough of disillusionment." Understanding this trajectory is a strategic asset.

Being an early adopter has benefits, but the peak is where you risk poor investments. If a technology survives the trough, you can clearly identify its real value. With executives watching AI closely-74% expect it to significantly affect their industry-now is the time to guide, not block.

Stop Selling Fear. Start Speaking Business.

Using fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) for a quick budget increase is a short-term play that rarely aligns with long-term goals. It erodes credibility. The better approach is to align cybersecurity with business priorities.

Instead of calculating the ROI of a security tool, shift the conversation using Outcome-Driven Metrics (OEMs) and Protection Level Agreements (PLAs). OEMs measure protection against specific risks, while PLAs define the level of resilience the business is willing to fund. This turns a fear-fueled debate into a fact-based dialogue about cost, benefit, and trade-offs.

The Institute for Cancer Research in London adopted this model. They presented the board with clear protection level options and achieved consensus on funding in a single meeting. The result was a 37% increase in their cybersecurity budget.

Prepare for Agentic AI: The Next Risk Surface

While generative AI gets the headlines, agentic AI holds greater long-term significance. These are autonomous systems that can perform tasks across digital environments-running searches, triggering APIs, and collaborating with other agents.

This creates new attack surfaces like prompt injection and agent hijacking. Securing agentic AI will demand new identity and access controls, including unique digital identities for agents and fine-grained, policy-based authorization. You will need to secure communication between agents just as you protect APIs today.

McMullen offers a pragmatic step: "If you are concerned about AI agents writing code, let them code inside a container. Developers already work this way, and it limits the fallout if one goes rogue."

Small, Focused Projects Deliver Real Wins

Avoiding AI is not an option. The key is to pilot specific, well-scoped use cases to build literacy and demonstrate value. Investing in AI literacy and running focused experiments over the next 18-24 months is critical.

• Sabre Travel developed an AI tool, Viper, to fix just four types of high-risk code vulnerabilities. It remediated 55% of them in six months, saving an estimated 100,000 developer hours.


• Workday launched a "policy bot" to handle routine HR queries. It eliminated 90% of related tickets and hit a 95% user satisfaction rating within weeks.

Even "shadow AI"-the unsanctioned use of tools by staff-is an opportunity. Instead of banning these tools, investigate why staff use them. Bring unsanctioned use into the light with governance, not shutdowns.

Hype is energy. For executives and CISOs, the power move is to channel that energy directly into strategy.